Three Things NBA Preview: Milwaukee Bucks
Three Things NBA Preview: Milwaukee Bucks
As I detailed a couple weeks back, I’m re-appropriating the Three Things I Noticed on League Pass format to preview the upcoming season. Instead of three things I noticed, it’ll be something more along the lines of three things I’m looking forward to, interested in, or want to see. Or something like that.
I am feeling better after my bout with COVID, so we’re getting back to it this week. As previously mentioned, the new schedule for those posts will be as follows (with links for completed posts):
Sept. 23-27: Southeast Division (ATL, CHA, MIA, ORL, WAS)
Sept. 30-Oct. 4: Pacific Division (GSW, LAC, LAL, PHX, SAC)
Oct. 7-11: Northwest Division (DEN, MIN, OKC, POR, UTA)
Oct. 14-18: Southwest Division (DAL, HOU, MEM, NOP, SAS)
So without further ado, let’s get to the Milwaukee Bucks.
Health, the only thing
Milwaukee was the NBA's second-oldest team by minutes-weighted age last season, and that was with then-32-year-old Khris Middleton missing 27 games and playing only 27 minutes per game when active. The Bucks should theoretically be younger this season by virtue of not bringing back Jae Crowder and having previously moved off of Patrick Beverley, but in the best-case scenario that Middleton is healthy, he would cancel some of that out.
They'll come into this season with Middleton now 33, Damian Lillard 34, and Brook Lopez 36. Even Giannis Antetokounmpo turns 30 in December. (That honestly shocked me. Remember how skinny this monster-sized human was when he came into the league? This will be his 12th season!)
It's been three years since Middleton made it through a full regular season healthy, and four since he made it through both the regular season and the playoffs. Giannis has been out for some or all of the playoffs in each of the last two years. Dame, obviously, has had his own health issues. Brook has held up quite well since the back injury that limited him in 2022, but 36-year-old 7-footers are, historically, not the best health bets.
These are the four best players on the team. If one of them goes down for any length of time, it’s a minor issue. (Unless it’s Giannis. Then they’re kinda screwed.) If two or even three of them have to miss time, it’s a major problem. Can we count on all four to make it through not just the regular season, but also the playoffs? I’m at least somewhat skeptical. The fully-operational version of this team should still be a contender; but that version of the team might be in the rearview mirror at this point.
Doc, the other thing
Here’s what I wrote last summer about what the Bucks needed in their next head coach (before they hired Adrian Griffin and traded for Dame):
In [Mike Budenholzer]’s five seasons with the Bucks, the team’s offense ranked fourth, eighth, sixth, third, and 12th in efficiency during the regular season, but consistently struggled to maintain that rate during the playoffs. Take a look, via Cleaning the Glass, at the drop-off the Bucks experienced from the regular season to postseason in Bud’s five years — and pay particular attention to what happened in half-court situations.
To me, this is the big “failing” of the Budenholzer era, so much as “they only won one title in five years” can be considered failing. Giannis Antetokounmpo has probably been the best player in the league for much of this five-year period, and the Bucks have consistently scored at a high level with him on the court during the regular season, and defended at a near-league-best level during both the regular season and the playoffs. But for the most part (this year excepted, weirdly, despite Giannis himself missing much of the first-round loss to the Heat), when the Bucks have lost, it’s been because their offense failed them in one way or another.
Whoever coaches this team next is going to be able to somewhat easily build a top-notch defense around Giannis and Jrue Holiday, and Brook Lopez if he’s re-signed. There are more things to figure out offensively, first if Brook is not back, and especially if Khris Middleton is not back. There are challenges to building an offense around a non-shooter, especially when your point guard is more of a combo guard and your best ball-handler is a wing entering his mid-to-late 30s and consistently dealing with health problems. It becomes even more difficult when you haven’t hit in the draft in a while, and when you’ve also cut costs by trading players you might have had to pay for in free agency.
This is still a highly-desirable job, and the Bucks should have their pick of available coaches. You’d have to be an idiot to not want to coach the rest of Giannis’ prime. But job No. 1 is going to be figuring out how to make the offense operate at its peak in times of peak importance.
Does that sound like Doc Rivers to you? It doesn’t to me! If anything, Doc’s teams have tended to have the exact same issue in the postseason as the ones the Budenholzer-era Bucks did. The idea behind the Dame trade was that he would be a solve for those issues. Maybe that will be the case. But if they end up needing an injection of creativity to figure out an opposing defense, it’s probably going to have to come from the guy’s on the floor.
Giannis and Dame, Season 2
Before last season began, I called the Dame-Giannis pick and roll, “the most important action in the NBA this season.” In my preseason predictions, I forecast that they would run 36.6 pick and rolls per 100 possessions together, a number that would have ranked seventh out of 122 duos who combined for at least 250 pick and rolls last year, if they had hit it, and 10th the year before.
Instead, despite them each being available for 73 games, Dame and Giannis combined to run … 19.8 ball screens per 100 possessions. That figure ranked 66th out of the aforementioned group of 122 duos. Lillard ran more pick and rolls per 100 possessions with both Lopez and Bobby Portis. If we limit the sample to just the games after Doc took over, the number jumped to 24.4 per 100. That’s better, but it’s not nearly enough. If the Dame-Giannis pick and roll isn’t the foundation of Milwaukee’s offense, what are we even doing here?
It would also be nice if Lillard for the Bucks if Dame could rediscover his shot. He made only 34% of his treys before the All-Star break, but did jump back up to 38% after it (albeit in less than half as many games). I might be a bit more concerned that his ability to get to the basket seemingly declined, with a career-low 19.4% of his shots coming within three feet of the rim. That's not usually the kind of number that rebounds as a point guard gets deeper into his mid-30s.
I firmly expect Giannis to be back with a vengeance after missing most of the last two playoff runs. He had arguably the best season of his career last year, shooting 61.1% from the floor and doing all of his usual scoring and rebounding and assisting and defending. His role in the Griffin hiring and firing no doubt affected his MVP candidacy. That presumably won't be an issue this year. For a player whose otherworldly strength and athleticism are such a big part of what makes him special, though, we do have to keep an eye on that as he hits his 30s. Not just for him but for the Bucks; even a 5-10% decrease in his effectiveness as a help defender would be a massive change for a team that is so dependent on those abilities. I don’t think we should be expecting that drop-off to come, but again, we have to be on high alert for it — especially given the age of the other core players.